"You do it your way, and I'll do it mine"

   

"Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs" goes the song, and recently a new sign popped up at the Louvre Museum in France. The sign, written only in Chinese, "forbids people from urinating or defecating wherever they want.”

     Why was this sign put in place? There doesn't seem to have been a particular incident related to this sign, but one reason may be that some Chinese don't have the same views on their bodily functions as many in the west do. For example, many Chinese parents don't put their babies in diapers, something that, if you were to do in Europe or the US, would get you stares at the least, or visits from the police at worst. Instead, they prefer to put their children in split pants, a type of pants that have an open crotch, and let them relieve themselves in any open area they can find. Also, to many Chinese, it is perfectly normal to spit just about anywhere. Because of this, some tried to curb public spitting before the Olympics started in 2008, so as not to damage China's image to those visiting from abroad.

     These differences in cultural issues, and the problems they have caused, have not gone unnoticed by Chinese officials. Recently China passed a new tourism law. The law will give travel agencies the authority to penalize tourists who violate social ethics. Wang Yang, a deputy prime minister from China, said that while many countries had welcomed tourists from his country, the quality of some of them left something to be desired. Yang said: "They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and some other uncivilized behavior. It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact."

    While the Chinese are working on the image problem their tourists have caused as they travel, they weren't the first nation to have a negative association with their tourists. For a large portion of the recent past, Americans have been seen as the ignorant tourists. There must be something about gaining superpower status that signals the worst behaving members of that society to go out into the world.





1. http://qz.com/88334/china-is-starting-to-get-embarrassed-about-its-tourists-obnoxious-behavior-abroad/
2. http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1f5ry9/china_is_starting_to_get_embarrassed_about_its/
3. http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-embarrassed-by-its-tourists-2013-5
4. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-starting-embarrassed-tourists-obnoxious-194019907.html
5. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-51379838/how-pg-brought-the-diaper-revolution-to-china/
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/world/asia/17manners.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&em&;ei=5087%0A=;en=95c25c162ed63e15;ex=1177041600
7. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2j9P9gh0ML3Y6GUJVh59KT8y5GAFgaOEYWwv0_V4hkJ_JrtrvEDyfr5nGpdVfd5NZ8vvtelKmqvEDtZknWHTKUgePjerJge1jGQsbE-yodoJs32onylyXixthuifQVsmeiteEbzmAZK-/s1600/road-signs-and-traffic-light.png

"But it sounds like that"

If you can hear, then it is safe to say you have experienced a mondegreen. A mondegreen is the name given to the what happens when you think you have correctly heard what some one said, but in actuality you have misheard it as something that sounds similar to what they said, but with a completely different meaning. The term comes from when an author misheard the line of a song, "And laid him on the green" as, "And Lady Mondegreen". While experiencing a mondegreen usually effects only listener, there is one famous case where multiple people experiencing mondegreens while listening to a single song brought the full force of the FBI down upon it.

     Back in the 1960's, rock and roll was starting to hit it's stride, however the ride was not without it's bumps. Elvis had stirred up massive controversy with his shaking hips on TV, radio DJ's were bringing more and more African American music to the attention of white children and more and more people were starting to worry about rock and roll driving kids to sex and drugs. All of this worry and fear came to something of a head in 1963 when the band the Kingsmen covered the song "Louie, Louie", the lyrics of which are below.

Louie, Louie, 

me gotta go. 

Louie, Louie, 

me gotta go. 

A fine little girl, she wait for me; 

me catch a ship across the sea. 

I sailed the ship all alone; 

I never think I'll make it home 

Three nights and days we sailed the sea;

me think of girl constantly. 

On the ship, I dream she there; 

I smell the rose in her hair. 

Me see Jamaica moon above; 

It won't be long me see me love. 

Me take her in my arms and then 

I tell her I never leave again.

     "Louie, Louie" had been around since the 50's, but it never gained national exposure until the Kingsmen's version became a hit in 1963. However there were several problems with their version of the song. First the quality of the actual recording of the song wasn't the best. The main recording that was released was only supposed to be practice version of the song. Next, the boom microphone used to record the song was so high up, the singer had to stand on his tip toes just so that he could be heard. Also, the night before, the band had done an epic 90 minute "Louie Louie" performance the night before the recording. That certainly didn't help bring any clarity to the lead singer's performance. All in all, the band didn't want to release the version they had, but they were charged for the "practice" session, and they decided to keep it. It was this version that made it big.

     Since parts of the song were hard to understand due to the low quality, it is no wonder that rumors began to spread as to the the actual content of the song. While the actual lyrics of the song are very tame, the rumored versions were anything but. Below is one version of what some people thought was actually being sung:

Louie, Louie, 

grab her way down low. 

Louie, Louie, 

grab her way down low. 

A fine little bitch, she waits for me; 

she gets her kicks on top of me. 

Each night I take her out all alone; 

she ain't the kind I lay at home 

Each night at ten, I lay her again; 

I fuck my girl all kinds of ways. 

And on that chair, I lay her there; 

I felt my boner in her hair. 

If she's got a rag on, I'll move above; 

It won't be long, she'll slip it off. 

I'll take her in my arms again; 

tell her I'd rather lay her again.

The lyrics above were not the only dirty version that circulated, with the above and several others being passed around by teenagers thinking that those were the actual lyrics. Eventually, a parent managed to come into possession of a version of the lyrics like the one above and the poo, as we say, hit the fan. 

     As the song was gaining more and more traction over the nation's airwaves, it is no wonder that some parents eventually brought "Louie Louie" and its supposed lyrics to to the government and complained. What followed was a nearly three year long investigation by the FBI. Anyone and everyone who had anything at all to do with "Louie Louie" was brought in and questioned. Acting on one rumor that to hear the profane version of the song, you had to play the record at a different speed than it was recorded the FBI tried playing the record at any and every speed they could, but they still could not hear any clear profanity. Eventually they gave up, saying that they were, "unable to interpret any of the wording in the record."

     "Louie Louie" went on to be covered many more times, eventually becoming one of the most covered songs in history. If the false controversy around it accomplished anything, it may have cemented in the minds of some parents and concerned citizens the darker side of rock and roll. Unfortunately rock and roll would sometimes go on to live up to those expectations.










Sources:
1. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqvXukKL3CwOwp8-d3_t1YXZiQrZiM8nyjJ-lFPOIdKxvhP9NPYdV9SJ5ITfaAta5PqzBzqsczJZVkuf0wlyBx27A3VVVSDVgdTKHThV8dP-D2kbRTmKi7kFVllobCJXvqNpID9z6wKG-9/s1600/hard+of+hearing.jpg
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
3. http://www.fun-with-words.com/mala_mondegreens.html
4. http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/humor/mondegreens.asp
5. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mondegreen
6. http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/louie.asp
7. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/funny/lascivious-louie-louie
8. http://oldies.about.com/library/weekly/aa091602a.htm
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie

All doesn't really mean all sometimes

     A duo in England found out that just because the resturant says that it is all you can eat, it may not really be ALL you can eat. Friends George Dalmon and Andy Miles were recently barred from Gobi,one of their local all you can eat resturants in the city of Brighton in the U.K., for eating too much. At least that is the reason the owner of the resurant gave the two men.

     According to Dalmon, the owner of the restrant came up to their table and told them that they were, "disgusting, and we're eating him out of business, so we're nothing but filthy pigs. So, I was quite shocked about this and I asked him if he was joking and he replied 'no, I'm definitely not, I've had it with you two, that's it'."

     Co-owner Peter Westgate didn't appear to be the least bit appologetic when he said of the two friends, "Like when the shark shuts its eyes before it feeds, they're like that. They just get to the buffet and whatever happens they just pile it in. They muck the buffet up for everyone, they push and shuffle people from the barbecue area and it's pretty sad really, because you can eat all you like over five-and-a-half hours - it's not an issue, you don't need to rush."

     A simular incident happened earlier this year in the U.S. when Bill Wisth was eating at the all you can eat fish fry at Chuck’s Place in Theinsville, Wisconsin. Having eaten 12 pieces of fried fish, Bill was told that he was "cut off". The resturant said that supplies were starting to run low, but they were willing to send him home with eight more pieces. Tempers flared and things escalated to the point that police had to be called to remove Wisth from the resturant.

     According to the resturant, this isn't the first time that Wisth had problems with them. In previous visits to the resturant, they claimed that Wisth had been unable to pay his bill and the resturant allowed him to have his food for free.

      Several days later, Wisth returned and picketed the resturant to protest his treatment there. He was given a warning for disorderly conduct because of his protest. However, Wisth said that he planned to keep protesting every Sunday, "until the restaurant rethinks what happened."






1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-19817457
2. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211766/Hungry-diners-given-life-ban-eat-restaurant-dont-look-in.html
3. http://gawker.com/5910720/man-protests-all+you+can+eat-restaurant-after-getting-kicked-out-for-eating-too-much
4. http://krod.com/wisconsin-man-kicked-out-of-all-you-can-eat-fish-fry/
5. http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-all-you-can-eat-wisconsin-man-kicked-out-of-all-you-can-eat-restaurant-for-eating-too-much-20120516,0,6600303.column